Tuesday, August 9, 2011

QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response code) are seen every where – on magazines, signs, buses, business cards, and labels on any product about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with QR reader application can scan the image of the QR code and the QR reader decodes it to display text, contact information, or open the product manufacturer’s web page in the phone's browser.

QR codes are a great way to add hyperlinks, so to say, to physical objects such as the URL of your company’s website to your business card. That way, people with whom you share your card doesn’t have to type the URL into their cellphone’s browser (which is quite a task, given the small size of the keys). Instead, it’s much easier to point one’s camera to the QR code image, scan it and let the software do the job.

QR codes are easy to create – there are plenty of online QR code generators. Even short URL services such as goo.gl and bit.ly automatically generates QR codes of any URL you shorten.

But MOJI-Q is QR code generator that is able to do something no other automated QR code generator can do - embed custom text messages into the QR code.

The above QR code is completely functional. Go ahead, scan the image with your camera phone and you should be taken to www.instantfundas.com.

MOJI-Q is a Japanese service. It’s only after machine translation that I was able to read the text on the various fields on the QR generation page. You define any URL or text you wish to convert into code along with the message you wish to embed – up to four lines long. You can also specify the location on the code where the custom text message is to be inserted. You can choose the color and even apply a rotation.

Save the QR code image to your hard disk and share it with your friends. This would look awesome in any business card.